Red Meat: Is It Hazardous to Health? (Harriet Hall) Red meat has been linked to cancer and other diseases. The scientific evidence is not conclusive: it supports limiting our consumption of red meat but it doesn’t support giving it up entirely.

Is Organic Food More Healthful? (Steven Novella) There is a paucity of quality research, but the existing data show no evidence for health benefits from eating organic food.

Fields, Alternative Medicine, and Physics(Eugenie Mielczarek) A physicist explains how the terms “energy” and “field” are used by practitioners of alternative and integrative medicine without any understanding of their meaning. Misuse of these words conveys the impression of scientific respectability to claims that have no scientific basis.

Lying Liars and their Lying Lies(Mark Crislip) Proponents of the highly questionable diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease have disseminated a false document allegedly written by the IDSA about “Delusional Chronic Lyme Syndrome.” The evidence does not support their beliefs, so they couldn’t compete in the scientific arena; instead, they descended to producing an obvious hoax in an attempt to discredit their opponents.

Andrew Wakefield Fights Back(Harriet Hall) Wakefield’s study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism was retracted by The Lancet and the General Medical Council stripped him of his medical license. His new book Callous Disregard is an embarrassing, tedious, puerile, and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at damage control.

Brief Note: The Chiropractic Subluxation is Dead(Harriet Hall) The UK’s General Chiropractic Council has formally rejected the subluxation concept that was the basis of chiropractic theory, but they still don’t seem to quite understand the concept of evidence-based medicine.